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User: thygrrr

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Comments · 67

  1. Re:Glucose power on The Challenges of Tapping Blood Flow For Power · · Score: 1

    Such fuel cells exist.

  2. Re:Expanding Horizons on Boot Linux In Your Browser · · Score: 1

    That damn spellchecker fixed good Alan's name. Sorry, Mr. Turing.

  3. Expanding Horizons on Boot Linux In Your Browser · · Score: 1

    This really broadened and expanded my horizon. While this was of course theoretically feasible ever since any touring complete scripting was available for web browsers, someone actually DOING it and letting the world play around with it marks a considerable paradigm shift to me, regarding how virtualization is viewed. ... or how computers are viewed.

    Because to me, computers have now become nothing more than web pages, nothing more than windows that you open somewhere, and then THAT is a computer, and independent machine.

    The machine is the content now.

    I guess it's hard to convey the magnitude of the insight I just got from experiencing this near little java script hack... but it's way up there with my first contact with cloud & virtualization technology.

  4. Wouldn't it be nerdishly awesome to tunnel eDonkey2k using those donkeys? Just sayin'... :)

    Required: One mp3 file, 2000 donkeys, and a tunnel across the border.

  5. Re:On the subject of games on Developing StarCraft 2 Build Orders With Genetic Algorithms · · Score: 4, Informative

    You have three choices (assuming the Total War series cannot be counted as viable Multi Player choices)

    More Strategic: R.U.S.E (awesome visuals, very autonomous units, very indirect control)
    More Direct: Supreme Commander - Forged Alliance (decent visuals, unprecedented scope of war and great control over your units)
    More StarCrafty: Supreme Commander 2 (think ugly Starcraft with the ability to fully zoom out)

  6. A Stylus is NOT the answer. on 8pen Reinvents the Keyboard For Mobile Devices · · Score: 1

    Oh please, everyone who suggests using a stylus...

    Have you ever used a decent capacitive screen (e.g. Samsung Galaxy, or any iDevice)?

    They are very precise and very responsive. Devices that require a pen also require you to pick up that pen first. I used a PalmOS device when these were still popular, and typing did work - but pulling out the pen was a serious hassle, and the tiny pens felt awkward.

    The only precision problem modern capacitive screens have is the curvature of the human finger, and the user's inability to properly see (or even estimate!) where his finger touches the glass. That's something I believe can be learned/trained, though, so it's important kids learn to use touch screens much like they learn to use a pencil.

    I think Palm's simplified alphabet would work awesomely on capacitive touch screens. It's just that patents block most of the innovation in this field (and 8pen is also patent pending... he great...)

  7. Re:I'm all for it on Intel Wants To Charge $50 To Unlock Your CPU's Full Capabilities · · Score: 1

    This is actually how they did it for years - it costs the same to make a chip with more or fewer features, processes are so decent now they just deactivate parts in the chip's firmware and sell those for the high demand of low end chips.

    They just made their firmware a little more flexible at what this so called "binning" can be made to do.

  8. Re:Asus on How 6 Memorable Tech Companies Got Their Names · · Score: 1

    aaaah-zoos.

    I'm German. :-)

  9. Re:Short for Cricket? on Smallest Manned Electric Plane Flies · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's actually not, Cricket was the name the Canadians gave it when they sold the kits for the plane, Cri-Cri was the designer's daughter's nickname!

  10. Re:wow on BP Says "Top Kill" Operation Has Failed · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Mud" is a technical term for all sorts of drilling fluids specifically designed to keep the pressure on an oil well.

    In this case, they used a special type of "Mud", even, "Kill Mud".

    But it still failed (and the failure has quite possibly damaged the Blowout Preventer atop the borehole further, potentially increasing the amount of oil gushing into the ocean.

  11. Re:Privacy on UC Berkeley Asking Incoming Students For DNA · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's named ANY_KEY.

  12. Re:Automatic transmissions fail before engines, no on Inventor Demonstrates Infinitely Variable Transmission · · Score: 1

    I come from a fairly hilly area in Germany and my stick shift cars have always been fine . In fact, without the transmission "randomly" switching gears, you can reduce slippage on icy roads a lot. Rear wheel drive is more of a problem in winter...

    By fairly hilly, I mean driving 10% inclines pretty much daily, up to 22% (just been up such a slope this wekend, and there's a town you're driving through).

  13. Professionals have *standards* on How To Behave At a Software Company? · · Score: 4, Funny

    Be polite.
    Be efficient.
    Have a plan to kill everyone you meet!

  14. Re:New Rule for posting about border crossings on Writer Peter Watts Sentenced; No Jail Time · · Score: 1

    Totally, even when going into Switzerland or Poland, they have a quick look at your ID and let you pass. Random inspections and searches do happen, but even then it's not a very tense thing. I admittedly don't know what it's like to get into the UK nowadays, though, seeing how they developed a very similar paranoia to the US.

    Frankly, what's going on there at the US/Canada border reminds me of the old FRG/GDR borders, or at least the Pre-Schengen-Agreement Germany/Czech Republic or Austria/Hungary... borders.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement

    What the hell, you guys have been neighbors all the time, you speak the same language, you are both developed countries; and all of the sudden the border security just climbs and climbs and climbs...? What reasons are there?

    Scary, to say the least.

  15. Getting out of your Car on Writer Peter Watts Sentenced; No Jail Time · · Score: 1

    Getting out of your car when pulled over or at the border seems like such a big deal in the US, it sure as hell doesn't in most European countries.

    It has always baffled me that it is that way in the US (I'm from Germany). My sister was once yelled at - at gun point! - to get back in the car when she got pulled over near Detroit for speeding once.

    Whenever I get pulled over (rarely, so far mostly routine inspections, and one 10km/h speeding ticket), my first instinct is to actually get out of the car because it's impolite in my eyes not to. I had my car and baggage searched at the Czech border once and we were of course standing around the car while the officers were looking through our bags, glove compartment, etc.

    I suppose I need to keep my instincts suppressed on my upcoming trips to the US, though I don't plan on getting pulled over in the first place. :)

  16. Re:Non sense on Best Seating Arrangement For a Team of Developers? · · Score: 1

    Decent in-ear Phones do not emit a lot of sound, but block most incoming noise.

    I use them every day. The best models are unfortunately at times so efficient that it requires people to tap your shoulder to actually get your attention when you're really focused.

    Man, I hate that. :-/

  17. Re:REGULATORS! on Rudolph the Cadmium-Nosed Reindeer · · Score: 1

    This is an illusion! Don't believe it; it doesn't get one particular fact right: the rich do not pay taxes proportionally to their income as the lower middle class does.

    MOST of a country's tax revenue comes from the broad masses; in fact, there are many millionaires paying *fewer* dollars TOTAL in taxes than most middle class citizens.

    Tax tricks and loopholes tend to get more useful the more assets you have to calculate against each other.

  18. Stardock, THQ titles on What Modern Games Are DRM-Free? · · Score: 1

    Stardock - www.stardock.com, and www.impulsedriven.net - offer their games DRM-Free and electronically distributed.

    THQ strips the copy protection from their games after a couple of patches, or releases them without one alltogether. (Examples: Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander)

  19. Re:Tried it already on Mining the Cognitive Surplus · · Score: 1

    I had exactly this thought today, and thanks for your post - I'll try it.

    I desperately tried to kill a lot of time today, and now I regret having killed most of it surfing the web, playing games, etc. The only productive parts of the day were some laundry I got done, and the 2 hours of excercise on my bike in the sun, which was great.

    The whole time, I kept wondering: What do I do now? What do I do now? I dabbled with a lot of small things, and got a lot done, but hardly enough to be truly satisfied. Instead, I feel like I murdered at least 8 hours of daylight.

  20. Re:silly on Cybersecurity and Piracy on the High Seas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Err, it's not about software piracy.

  21. Re:Sodium reactors and the Navy on Suppresed Video of Japanese Reactor Sodium Leak · · Score: 1

    I find this unlikely. Cold (i.e. room temperature) sodium only sizzles in water, releasing a little bit of hydrogen in the form of bubbles, unless it's not a "small chunk".

    Now, hot, liquid sodium... that's a different story. Don't blast that with a firehose... (didn't this happen with a reactor in Europe once?)

  22. Re:Two-hundred-eight-thousand five-hundred sixty-n on Afterlife Will Be Costly For Digital Films · · Score: 1

    That's quite possible, thanks.

    English is not my native tongue. :-)

  23. Two-hundred-eight-thousand five-hundred sixty-nine on Afterlife Will Be Costly For Digital Films · · Score: 1

    $208,569

    That number is also awfully accurate for an estimate.

  24. Re:That sounds high on Afterlife Will Be Costly For Digital Films · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I agree. Even if there is gonna be some overhead (pay the guy who swaps out broken drives), it's never, ever gonna be over 200 Grand per movie.

    That's silly. I'm pretty sure some "Consultant" came up with that figure.

  25. Why? on Afterlife Will Be Costly For Digital Films · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is it more expensive to preserve a bunch of bits and bytes than, say, a reel with analog information, printed on some soon-to-be-brittle plastic? I'm very sure the latter will decay in a quicker fashion.